Cameroon-United States: U.S. Congress shows interest in modernization of Douala port

On August 21, 2026, the Deputy General Manager of the Autonomous Port of Douala (PAD), Charles Michaux Moukoko Njoh, received a delegation from the U.S. Congress led by Mike McCabe, Chief of Staff of the Subcommittee for Africa of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The visit to this Cameroonian port was followed by a meeting at the PAD headquarters. The meeting focused on port and maritime security, a key issue to reassure international markets and secure commercial flows in the Gulf of Guinea. This issue remains sensitive for a port that handles 95% of Cameroon’s national port traffic – and ranks first in the CEMAC zone – while also serving Chad and the Central African Republic, two landlocked countries in the hinterland benefiting from preferential rates.

The Douala meeting then allowed the PAD to present its main modernization projects. The Deputy General Manager mentioned “territorial expansion towards Essengue, Manoka Island, and the right bank of the Wouri, as well as the construction of an oil tanker berth, new warehouses, and the rehabilitation of the fishing port and the Boscam dock.”

According to Charles Michaux Moukoko Njoh, “these investments are part of the port’s development master plan for the period 2020-2050, adopted in December 2019.” This document aims to increase the port’s handling capacity from around 12 million tons currently to 45 million tons by 2050.

The expansion to Manoka Island is intended to address a major technical constraint. “This concerns the limited draft of the current Bonabéri site, worsened by persistent silting, which prevents the reception of the largest modern container ships,” explains Charles Michaux Moukoko Njoh. The Douala-Bonabéri site, nestled on the Wouri estuary, is indeed constrained by a shallow-depth channel. The project involves the construction of a deep-water port hub, capable of accommodating the world’s largest ships and absorbing the expected growth in container traffic, projected to reach around 1.8 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) by mid-century, compared to 380,000 today.

In addition to physical infrastructure, the PAD highlighted the continuous improvement of its operational performance. An independent study conducted by the Sub-Regional Institute of Statistics and Applied Economics (ISSEA) and funded by the European Union, whose report was submitted in September 2025, already confirmed that “the overall port transit time has decreased from about 14 days to 8-9 days in recent years, with a gradual elimination of many parallel fees long criticized by economic operators.”

These advancements caught the attention of the American delegation. Following the visit, the two parties now plan to establish twinning agreements with major U.S. ports. Private investors from the United States are also expected to arrive. The visit concluded with a tour of the container and timber terminals, allowing the Congressional emissaries to directly assess the dynamism of this strategic infrastructure for the Cameroonian economy.

For the PAD, this American parliamentary visit adds to a series of international partnerships already underway, such as the construction of quay 17, launched in July 2025 with the French group Negri, or the announced involvement of the World Bank in financing the master plan, which has not been confirmed at this stage. The main challenge now is to translate Washington’s interest into concrete financial commitments, in a context where the PAD still needs to mobilize significant investments to meet the schedule of its ambitious development plan by 2050.